


Johnny Egbert and the Chamber of Secrets

by mitspeiler



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Homestuck
Genre: Basilisk - Freeform, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Gilderoy Lockhart is a pedophile, Hogwarts, Jigglypuff - Freeform, Multi, Skaia, just look at him, the Heir of Slytherin
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-09
Updated: 2014-02-22
Packaged: 2018-01-08 01:56:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1127035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mitspeiler/pseuds/mitspeiler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Harry Potter's second year, a whole slew of American weirdo exchange students come over for a semester.  Everything seems cool until people start being attacked in the hallways in turned into stone, begging the questions; what is the chamber of secrets?  What is the monster of Slytherin?  And most importantly, is Professor Lockhart a pedophile?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Little Hop Across the Pond

            The great hall hushed as Dumbledore rose to stand at his podium.  Even the shittiest of shitheads from Slytherin paused in their racially charged snobbery to hear the sage speak.  His eyes twinkled with a mixture of youth and vast wisdom behind horn-rimmed glasses, sparkling with the light of a thousand reflected candles, as he opened his droll mouth.  Voice wavering yet strong and clear, he spoke.  “Good evening, students.  Normally I would lead you in a stirring rendition of our school anthem, but on this night I have a happy announcement to make.”  He gestured grandly, lavender robes fluttering in a non-existent breeze.  “Tonight, we are introducing several wonderful exchange students from our sister-school in America, The Skaia Academy of Wizardly Vassals.”

            Murmurs rippled through the crowd, some of excitement, some of hostility, not a few of disinterest.  Dumbledore raised his wand, flashing with white light, and the talk subsided.  “As a sign of goodwill and friendship to our guests for the year, they will be sorted first, before the coming first years.  Let’s hope you give them some happy memories to take back to the [dystopian hell-world they call home](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/3964606/1/Alexandra-Quick-and-the-Thorn-Circle).”  The murmurs reoccurred stronger than ever before.

            A crowd of anxious looking children formed at one of the entrances near the front of the hall, children in gaudily colored dress-robes, none of which shared the exact same cut or color yet all had some sort of thematic similarity that implied they were uniforms.  Curiously, most of the students had some sort of eye-wear.  Professor McGonagall stood primly at their side looking for all the world like the headmistress of some stern Victorian boarding school (the only difference here being that this was the 90s and she was only deputy headmistress).  She unfurled a scroll which briefly flared with magic as it wrote itself, a list of the foreign students.  “Eridan Ampora,” she declaimed in a loud voice that rang through the hall.  Everyone ‘ooh’ed.

            A glower-faced boy that looked much as Harry Potter would if he were some sort of hipster shithead stalked up towards the platform.  The sorting hat had barely been placed upon his head before it shouted “HUFFLEPUFF!”  His robes were instantly transformed into smart Hogwarts robes with yellow trim and a yellow tie.  Everyone laughed at his surprised.  He growled and stalked forward, amplifying his voice with magic.  “Fuck EVVERYON—” he said, before being flung across the hall into a chair at the Hufflepuff table.  “That’s ten points from Hufflepuff, Mr. Ampora,” McGonagall warned.

 

            At the end of the night, the foreign children had been split up more or less evenly among the four houses, with the exceptions of the elder Ampora child, Cronus, who had been sent to Durmstrang for remediation, and Caliborn, who was doing a stint in Alcatraz for crimes against wizard-kind.  With all the excitement no one even noticed that Harry Potter and Ron Weasley had arrived late, in a flying car.

 

            Roughly an hour later, Dave Strider found himself incredibly bored.  Why the hell was everyone at his table _such a shithead_?  Take that smarmy looking blond sitting across from him trying to indoctrinate him in the ways of smarmy blondness for example.  He was just going on about some weird shit like blood purity and how awesome it was to have money.  Dave loosened his tie, acid-green and striped with silver.  He didn’t mind ties but it just gave him something to do instead of listening to old wassname.  Dragon Malloy or some shit.  “So you see,” said Lizard Mallory, “things work very differently here than they do in America.  I can show you how things are done, and you can avoid wasting time with scum like Potter and his blood-traitor friends.”  He extended his hand and Dave looked at it like it was an interesting dead thing preserved in amber resin.  Dave looked to his left.  Rose, the Serket kids, and a few others he didn’t know quite so well were seated next to him.

            “Wanna go sit next to John?” Dave asked, already getting up.  So did everyone else.

            Constellation WASPy-Surname choked on his own spit, eyes bulging out of his head.  “He’s a Gryffindor!”

            “For like the past ten minutes what’s your problem?”  Draco sputtered, temporarily thrown by the boy’s accent.  The great hall dimmed to silence as one by one, all of the American students stood up and moved to the back.  “Please,” he said, following after, “don’t leave!  We have so much in common!”

            Dave stopped.  Two incredibly pale white boys with white-blond hair, a superior attitude, and a general disdain other people looked at each other.  “Of course not,” said Dave.  “I part my hair.” 

            He left Draco wondering why no one interesting ever wanted to be his friend.  “All I have is Crabbe and Goyle,” he muttered to himself angrily.  Behind him, Crabbe choked on all of the table’s sausages as part of a bet, while Goyle laughed, pounding on his back, wondering how high someone even had to be to do something like that.  Draco could sense in his heart that all of those words had been misspelled in Goyle’s head.

 

            The American students assembled their own table, conjuring assorted flat surfaces and stacks of things to place them on in a sprawl of geometric debauchery, carefully constructed not to fall over while looking like it was only a matter of time.  McGonagall took a step forward, outrage plain on her face, but Dumbledore stopped her.  “Machinations are beginning to machinate,” he mumbled, fingers meeting in front of his face in what baser men might describe as ‘the tented hands of villainy’ but on him almost resembled a prayer.

            “You’ve been into the sherry,” McGonagall accused.  Dumbledore did not deny it.

 

            “…so clearly the house divisions are meant not to embody some nebulous concepts of inherent wizardly virtues but to separate the student body into easily manageable factions that can and in fact are, constantly, being played against one another in order to forward the school board’s agendas without opposition from a strong student body.  Take for example, Slytherin House, whose sole core virtue is officially ambition yet is known to be a viper’s nest, if you will pardon my pun, of course, of students from old money who nigh on universally share opinions that in my homeland would be considered ‘politically incorrect’ at the very least.  Surely students from poor families have ambition also?  Perhaps even more, as they have everything to gain and nothing to lose.  However, students of un-notable ancestry and poor to middling social status are delegated into Hufflepuff, which though admittedly more diverse in its demographics is universally considered a laughingstock and the House that accepts ‘all the rest’.  Now, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, claiming courage and intelligence as their respective virtues, are divided more accurately by their penchants for physical and mental prowess; essentially jocks and nerds. There are of course exceptions, vestigial remnants perhaps, from the houses' original purposes back when the school admitted fewer than a hundred students and they were hand-picked by their respective Heads of House.  Interestingly, Ravenclaw has the highest percentage of non-British and nouveau riche families, while Gryffindor has a large amount of families that were once considered influential either politically or culturally.  This could be a coincidence or just the result of several centuries of conflict of interest.”  Rose heaved a satisfied sigh.  She hadn’t had a proper rant in ages and now everyone turned to Vantas the Elder for their ranting needs as if she were chopped liver.  They’d already forgotten about the memoirs of John’s first year adventures she’d written and distributed to the entire student body.

            Kanaya scratched her chin.  “You should have been in Ravenclaw with me.”  Rose almost fell over but knew that her girlfriend was just trolling her.  Gilderoy Lockhart strolled by at that exact moment and gave the young ladies a wink and a gun, smiling with his excessive number of perfectly white yet slightly too big teeth.  He expected them to fall into a puddle of vapid goo as they felt excitement in their girlparts for the very first time, but unfortunately for Gilderoy Lockhart, both young ladies were far too intelligent to fall for his clearly feigned charisma, had sexual orientations that averaged out to ‘technically bi because Rose believes a nice butt is a nice butt’, and that before the 2000s, the only British celebrities people would have heard of in America were the queen and Hugh Grant.

            Unfortunately for Rose Lalonde, she had lilac eyes, a color that Professor Lockhart adored with nigh on fetishistic obsession.  She glared at him before suddenly convulsing, hair standing up and flowing very slowly, as if underwater.  Her voice became deep and terrible as her eyes rolled over, white as death.  “ _You’re fucked,”_ she intoned, pronouncing it with the finality of a death sentence.

            Kanaya snapped her fingers in front of Rose’s face.  “Back to earth dear,” she said.  “You’ve had another prophecy.”

            Gilderoy, being an idiot, muttered something about taking ten points from Slytherin for foul language and that Miss Lalonde should see him in his office later.  He then sped off down the hall.  “What’s eating him?” Rose muttered.  “Other than the ravenous monster that is his own ego,” she clarified.

            Kanaya found it to have an opportunity to snark, or rather she chose not to most of the time.  Unless, of course, she was with Rose.  “I believe _you_ are,” she said, laughing in her heart.  “At least in his dreams.”

 

            “So you saved the entire school using just your own magical prowess from a full out assault by all kinds of horrible dark magic monsters?” asked Ron dubiously.

            “That’s right,” said John, nodding happily.

            “Meanwhile,” Karkat said, arms folded, “under my leadership kids from all twelve houses joined together to fight the city sized horrorterror that was threatening to devour the United States.”

            “And Jade figured out how to Disapparate inside school grounds,” John insisted, “making sure almost everyone got to safety before the magical bomb I activated went off, saving my life just in the nick of time.”

            Karkat chuckled.  “And those fuckheads Strider and Lalonde used a time turner to accidentally create the power source that Professor Scratch used to betray us in the first place.”

            “But it’s okay because Groundskeeper Noir and his poker buddies killed off the entire Felt Mob except Scratch himself!”

            “Yeah, Principal Hussie beat _him_ to death with a racing broom and freed all the little girls he had locked up in his cellar.”

            [“All while this song played!”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ckr6KyZoS58) They concluded together, conjuring up music with their wands.  John’s was painted several shades of blue and tipped with a sphere with a carven face on it; Karkat’s was curved and gnarled like a stick from some dull grey tree.

            “This happened in one year?” Harry asked, incredulously.

            “One day technically,” John clarified.

            “His bullshit all happened in a day,” Karkat snapped, indicating John with his thumb.  “Mine was a grueling six hundred hour campaign against the forces of evil, _one of which John was dating,_ during which I didn’t sleep a single fucking wink.”

            Harry and Ron looked at each other.  “That is such nonsense,” Ron scowled.

            “Hey, we’re still young,” said Harry, pacifyingly.  “We can have loads better adventures as we age.”

            “And our adventures are totally over,” John said.  “We’re safe now and there’s no way we’ll end up having more, more dangerous adventures.”

            Karkat nodded.  “It’s not like everyone we know will be killed or anything.” 

            “Thank God for that,” Harry said with a nod.

            “Well everyone’s got to die someday,” Ron acknowledged, “but at the very least they won’t all kill each other off.”  Everyone stared at him for this cryptic statement.  In the distance, Gamzee could be seen talking to Peeves, honking horns in each other’s faces.

            “Ah, Mr. Egbert,” said Gilderoy Lockhart, looking as if he desperately needed a distraction.

            “Professor Gilderoy Lockhart!” John said excitedly.  “You’re the best British celebrity I know!”

            Karkat, the shortest of the four boys, was perfectly level with Gilderoy’s crotch.  “ARE YOU FUCKING _ERE_ —”

            “ ** _Twenty_** _points from Gryffindor_ ,” Lockhart hissed.  Karkat growled animalistically but said nothing.  He turned back to John, and beamed extravagantly.  “Ah!  Well, I’m glad to know that someone in your country has some taste, eh boy?”  He put his arm around John’s shoulder conspiratorially.  “Now John,” he said in a loud whisper.  “I hear that you’re something of a celebrity back home.”

            “Not really,” he said modestly.  “It’s more of a cult thing.  A lot of people are forgetting about me now that it’s over.”  He snickered.  “A few of the people who are still fans are going a little stir crazy waiting for something new to happen.  There’s weird little, artistic movem—”

            “What you need,” Gilderoy said, cutting in with the weighty tones of a man who was done caring what another man had to say, “is help from a more experienced fandom.  I mean celebrity.  This way you can attract more people to your fold, so to speak, and keep up the celebrity status _even when you’re not doing anything at all!”_   In a more hushed and yet considerably more dramatic whisper, insuring everyone in the hall heard, he added, “for example, I sold the rights to my story to one of those muggle companies that makes moving pictures.  We can get those on the cheap I know, but it’s still a big deal for them and there are many pounds to be had—” he stammered a bit, “that’s muggle money.  The exchange rate is actually very much in our favor because we still use gold!”  John nodded fascinatedly, following the well groomed wizard and nodding periodically, passing a group of Slytherins having a heated discussion as they went.

            “I’m telling you,” said Dave, not breaking his stride as the other Slytherin boys struggled to keep up, “I just can’t be friends with people who are friends with people who pronounce ‘thing’ as ‘fink’.  How is that even a logical thing to do?”  He was heading right for Harry’s group.

            Malfoy growled.  “Crabbe!  Goyle!  You’re both fired!”

            Goyle stood stock still and slack-jawed, a brutish tear forming in his thuggish eye.  “I still have feelings you know,” he said, turning on his heel.  “I thought we was friends!”

            Crabbe however looked furious.  “Well go twat it you girly wanker!  I’m going to start my own gang!  With Exploding Snap, and Veela!”  He stormed through the Gryffindor boys, who glared as he passed; Harry and Ron on principle and Karkat out of the scorn he keeps for all things he isn’t best friends with yet.

            “No how’m I gonna be friends with someone who treats his friends like employees?” Dave asked, shaking his head dramatically.  “Wait what’d they make?”

            “Six galleons a month,” Draco said immediately, face lighting up.  “But I’ll double it for you!”

            Dave *tsked*, as close as he could get it to an undignified raspberry.  “That’s still less than minimum wage.  I thought you were rich.”

            Draco turned his head at an angle like a dog puzzling through something.  “What the _bloody hell_ is minimum wage?”

            But Dave was no longer listening.  “Sup Vantas,” he said, forcing the other boy’s hand into a secret handshake.

            “Hey asshole,” said Karkat, as he suffered the treatment.

            Ron tried to choke down his instinctual hatred for green and silver ties, assuming they’d been friends since before sorting.  Besides, the boy known as asshole clearly enjoyed vexing Malfoy and that was redeeming enough.  “It’s still weird though,” he muttered.

            “Yeah see back at Skaia,” Dave explained, “there were so many classifications designed so that every student would be a special little snowflake so no one in our group of friends has the exact same set of groups as everyone else and the whole system was mostly pointless in our eyes.”

            “Except for Ampora,” Karkat amended.  “He acted like he was royalty.”  Rolling his eyes at himself, he added, “by the way his name is actually Dave, not asshole, and these assholes are Harry and Ron.”

            “Nice,” said Dave, acknowledging them with nods.  “Funny story me and Karkat went out with the same girl at the same time until she left us for his best friend.”

            “Well that’s certainly terrible,” said Harry.

            “So you volunteered for this project to get away from her, eh?” said Ron, nodding in understanding.

            “That was the plan,” said Karkat, “but she’s here too.”

            “And so’s he,” added Dave.  “The one trying to teach the poltergeist how to rap.”

            “Oh,” said Ron.  He was suddenly both terrified and intrigued by the presence of such creatures on campus.

 

            Neville Longbottom was lying on the ground bleeding from his nose.  Crabbe’s new gang had been terrorizing the school, especially with the help of that evil Serket girl and the wretched clown.  He heard them laughing as they sauntered away with all of his pocket money and his pet toad.  “Come on Pike; let’s go shove Ampora’s head in Moaning Myrtle’s toilet!”

            “Why,” Neville thought.  “Why can’t I be—?”

            A red shoe appeared in his line of sight and he thought the evil spider-girl had returned to kick his teeth in.  “Do what you want with me you bitch,” he said, mouth moving almost entirely of its own accord.  He jerked his wand out of his pocket, the tip glowing red as if catching fire.  “But I’m not going to take it lying down.”  His voice was thick with clotted blood in his mouth.  “Er, figuratively.”

            A wicked little cackle sounded above, but it wasn’t _hers_.  Hers was a derisive giggle full of high intelligence and utter cruelty.  This was something else entirely.

            And besides, these were sneakers, not shoes, and they had multicolored dragons on the inside.  He looked up, and saw a grinning face framed by short blonde hair, decorated with a pair of red cat’s-eye sunglasses and a razor-sharp smile.  His bowels turned watery.  “I like your spirit,” said the new girl, winking at him over her sunglasses.  She extended her hand towards him, the other, resting against her long, dragon-headed wand, almost a cane.  “So, Serket’s been giving you trouble eh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My girlfriend made fun of me and said I wouldn’t be able to do a proper one-shot if my life depended on it and I scoffed and told her to make me a sandwich, for which she kicked me out of the house. Sitting here in a public library, I can see she was right :( It’s just, once it turned out Lockhart’s favorite color was lilac I just had to have him try to molest Rose; I am an evil, awful man.  
> Clearly John’s adventures were the events of Homestuck, vastly abridged and rewritten as if they occurred in the Potterverse. Any other questions shall likely go unanswered.  
> I thought the houses the characters were sorted in would be more important and they would be if they’d been in Hogwarts from the start but they weren’t, so it’s mostly arbitrary. I’ll let you, the audience, make house suggestions! And I may consider them.


	2. Gotta Catch 'Em All!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T_T

            It was later in the day and students were beginning to crowd around the entrance to the great hall waiting for dinner.  John was bouncing on the balls of his feet like some kind of deranged and possibly intoxicated kangaroo.  “Professor Lockhart asked me to help him with his fanmail while we talk about being famous!”

            Karkat gagged, almost to the point of actually vomiting.  When he finally recovered, he grabbed John by the shoulders and glared.  “John, you stay the fuck away from Lock _hard_.  Dude’s obviously a hardcore pedophile and I don’t want to see you get raped onto the front page of the Daily Prophet!”

            “’sup,” said Dave, striding up to the pair of them.  “Lover’s quarrel?  Seriously the two of you are the weirdest couple ever because you’re not even gay.”

            John shook Karkat off himself firmly and nodded.  “We just pretend we are because we’re so goddamn bishie that the bitches and hos would be _all over us_ if they knew we were straight!” 

            He leaned in towards Karkat, lips puckered, and Karkat slapped him across the mouth.  By now people were watching with interest.  Snape hurried past angrily, and snapped out a “twenty points from Gryffindor!” while stroking his nonexistent goatee,[1] “ten each, for violence and public displays of affection.”

            At that point Harry Potter walked in followed by his usual entourage and Dave directed his gaze Hermioneward.  “Damn,” he whispered.  He absolutely _loved_ crazy [2] girls with buck teeth[3] and too much hair[4].  Her hair was brown instead of the all too common black but he could learn to deal.  “Hey we’ll talk later though,” he said in a much louder voice, shoving Karkat and John apart.  “Good luck with whatever.”

            “John’s going to get molested!” Karkat shouted after him.

            “Cool, tell me all about it,” said Dave, not listening at all.

            “I’m not saying that I can’t do the assignment,” said Ron, using a combination of body language that signified that he was simultaneously not worried and also terrified for his life, “I’m just saying that you can do it _so much better!_ ”

            Hermione growled, a sound only a few notes lower than a shriek. No one could shriek like Hermione and in fact, in her adult life, she would discover that her magical ancestry was not merely wizard descent but also that she’d had a banshee great great grandmother, a fact that she would trumpet far and wide in her campaign for the rights of the differently sentient, but that is a tale for another time.  Either way, Ron knew that he’d pushed his friend just a bit too far, because that bastard Harry had already asked her to do his homework and new she was overloaded, so he went on the defensive.

            “Look,” he said, “my wand is _broken_!”  Half of the once powerful stick hung from a tangled knot of sparkling Spell-o-tape, sparking and hissing like a stripped wire, or an infuriated housecat.

            “This is an _essay_ for _Potions_ , Ron,” Hermione hissed, nagging at subcritical level.  “You don’t _need_ your wand.”

            Dave stepped in and bumped Ron aside.  “Happens to all guys bro better luck next time,” he said, leaning against a wall with practiced and professional coolness.  In actuality, there was no wall.  Dave had manifested the ability to lean when there was nothing to lean on, due to sheer force of cool rather than magic.  

            Hermione scoffed, or rather she was about to scoff, and then Dave looked at her over the edges of his shades and said “you know guys should be lining up to do _your_ homework, right?  Pretty thing like you.”  Her mouth, which had opened to deliver a vicious lecture, just sort of hung open uselessly.  “No one,” she eventually whispered, "has ever said that to me.”

            Dave tsked, staring disapprovingly at Ron and Harry.  “What classes are you takin’ hot stuff?” he asked.

            Hermione mumbled something vague about charms on even days.  “Don’t lie to me,” Dave warned, “I’m in that class too and would have noticed you already.”

            “Yeah,” Ron grumbled, “because her hand shoots up every five seconds—”

            “Because you’d be the most charming thing in that classroom,” Dave said sharply, more silencing Ron than addressing Hermione, “Babe, I advise you to lose the zero and get with the hero.” He leaned in conspiratorially.  “The hero’s me.”  Hermione giggled.  Ron gasped, having never heard her laugh.  He thought she’d been incapable.  “Look here mate,” Ron warned.  Dave ignored him.

            “You and I should go find an empty classroom to study,” said Dave.  “And then not study.”

            Hermione gasped in horror.  “Why would we _not_ study?” she asked, bushy hair bristling like a wary predator.

            Dave blinked.  “I was asking you if you wanted to make out,” he clarified.

            “What’s that even _mean_?”  Ron asked, fuming.  Whatever it was he didn’t like the sound of it.  Harry put his hand on Ron’s shoulder, sighing deeply.

            Dave removed his sunglasses with a pained sigh.  “Why don’t you British people just learn English?” he said with the tones of a long-suffering American.  “It means…what’s the word…Karkat says it… _snog._ ”

            Hermione’s mouth became a little “O” and her eyes drifted up and down Dave, exactly once and very briefly.  But she noticed his glimmering ruby eyes, like blood spilt on driven snow, so deep and mysterious, and then her face got warm.  “Well that’s…” she said, trailing off. 

            “C’mon Hermione,” Ron scoffed, slicing the air with a fierce chop of his hand, “This git’s clearly trying to have a laugh.”  He aimed an accusing finger at Dave.  “Look at him,” Ron said sneeringly, “Handsome bloke, thinks he can wear sunglasses at night, asking _you_ out?”  Harry slapped his forehead, muttering something obscene about Weasleys.  He should have intervened earlier and now judging from the purple hue of Hermione’s face it was too late.  “I thought you might be different from the others,” Ron said, drawing his wand, “but you’re just a regular Slythering through and through, trying to take the mickey out of poor old Hermione like that—”

            Hermione’s left eye twitched.  “Ron?” she said sweetly, still looking at Dave.

            “Yeah?” said Ron, voice just slightly defensive.  Something was clearly wrong.

            Hermione whipped out her wand.  “Eat slugs.”

            It took Filch _weeks_ to clean up the aftermath.

 

_“You might belong in Hufflepuff,_   
_Where they are just and loyal,_   
_Those patient Hufflepuffs are true,_   
_And unafraid of toil !”_

            Nepeta and her new friend Hannah Abbot finished their song and dance number with carefully rehearsed jazz hands as the looming specter of Equius watched from the shadows.  He had made a big fuss about being placed in the same house as Nepeta, despite the Sorting Hat insisting on Gryffindor.  Eridan sneered, remembering that wretched hat.

            The rest of Hufflepuff house exploded into thunderous applause.  Eridan turned on his heel and stormed back to the dorms.  He hated the common room.  It was underground for one thing, and for another the black and yellow décor reminded him of Sollux and his fucking stupid animagus powers that let him turn into a swarm of bees.  God he hated that guy so much it almost gave him an erection. 

            But yeah…they didn’t even have a swimming pool!  He bet all the other houses had a swimming pool.  Fef said there was one on the roof of Ravenclaw Tower.  Damn nerds threw _nightly_ wild parties in there.

            A clutch of shiny eyed blond children with lobotomy-patient smiles materialized in front of him from the ether, and he wondered when they got taught that.  “You look sad,” they said with one voice.

            “Get the fuck out of my wway and go back to the Lollipop Guild,” Eridan said, the most wretched sneer he could muster parting his lips.  They did not.  He decided it was not worth a conflict and tried to turn around them but there were more, and soon it seemed the entire house was smiling at him and barring his exit.  “You look sad,” they repeated. 

            Eridan was now terrified.  Without hesitation he drew his wand.  “ _Avvad—”_ Someone pressed something pink and round and pillowy-soft into his chest.  “You need some time with the Hufflepuff Jigglypuff, mister!”  Nepeta reprimanded. 

            “What the puff?  Er, huff,” said Eridan, looking down at the thing, not even noticing that he had failed to swear.  It was perfectly round and had pointed ears and huge green eyes.  The creature was so precious and charming that he instantly fell in love, in the way a person falls in love with a puppy and not the way an Eridan falls in love with everyone else. 

            “She’s your friend!” said all the Hufflepuffs at once.  Their voices were no longer creepily in unison.  In fact, he realized, they just got along so well that they all knew exactly what to say.  Eridan nodded.  His eyes became watery as he looked into the creature’s own, and he felt a dam of emotions repressed since childhood bursting forth in a flood of half-joyous tears.  The creature [opened her mouth and began to sing.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjyL2Wooh9Q)

 

            Eridan woke up in a dark pit, face covered in Sharpied-on penises.  Above him all the other Hufflepuffs were arranged in a circle around the pit’s mouth.  The Hufflepuff prefect stepped forth as the others began to chant. 

 

_“The Heavens declare the glory of the Jigglypuff and the Firmament showeth her handiwork.”_

           

            “Eridan Ampora,” he began in a loud clear voice.  “You have been brought here to be tested.  Though the Hat has deemed you worthy of our House your commitment to the ideals of our founder is in question.”

 

_“The Heavens declare the glory of the Jigglypuff and the Firmament showeth her handiwork.”_

            “Fear not,” the prefect announced, “for all our House most Holy standeth at your trial and cheers you on!”

 

_“The Heavens declare the glory of the Jigglypuff and the Firmament showeth her handiwork.”_

            “Wwhat’s this about the Jigglypuff!?” Eridan announced.  “I thought it was just a cute house pet, like the Ravvenclaww revvenant!”  His eyes scanned the crowd for the pink creampuff of love.  She was nowhere in sight.  His heart sank.

            “Long hath the heathen badger been the public face of our House,” the prefect declared.

 

_“The Heavens declare the glory of the Jigglypuff and the Firmament showeth her handiwork.”_

 

            “But our glorious founder Helga Hufflepuff returned to Earth from the netherworld, for yea only love can pierce the veil of death!”

 

_“The Heavens declare the glory of the Jigglypuff and the Firmament showeth her handiwork.”_

 

            “Now, like the sword of Gryffindor and the Beast of Slytherin, and the Large Hadron of Ravenclaw,” the prefect’s eyes were shining with religious fervor, “she will appear to all true Hufflepuffs in their hour of need in the form of Jigglypuff Most Holy!”  His voice was becoming loud and thick as if he could barely contain himself.

 

_“The Heavens declare the glory of the Jigglypuff and the Firmament showeth her handiwork.”_

 

            “You’re insane!” Eridan declared, reaching for the wand in its holster.  It was gone.  “Fffffffffffuuuuuuuu—”

 

_“The Heavens declare the glory of the Jigglypuff and the Firmament showeth her handiwork.”_

 

            “Now!” The prefect shouted, “The test begins!”

 

“ _May the blessings of Helga Hufflepuff Almighty and the Fellowship of the Holy Jigglypuff descend upon us all, this day and forever more!  Amen_!”

 

            “RELEASE THE BADGER!”

            “YOUUUUUUU!” Eridan finished, brandishing his middle finger instead of a wand.  The walls of the pit drew back like curtains of earth and ferocious badger as tall as Eridan’s chest at the shoulder leaped snarling through, eyes blazing yellow, the stripes of its fur stained gold.  It was beautiful and awful all at once, like the devil. 

            Eridan decided that it couldn’t be killed, and therefore didn’t even try to fight it.  The great badger, reeking of death, smashed him to the ground with an iron paw and picked him up in its jaws, tossing him around like a ragdoll before slamming him into the far wall.  Up above, the Hufflepuffs were singing.  Eridan closed his eyes and waited for the badger to kill him.  “I can rest now,” he said, a single tear rolling from his eye.  He could feel its hot breath on his neck, right about his throat.  He awaited the bite that would end his life.

            The bite never came.  Instead there was a sound like a wooden bat smashing a baseball at high speed, a surprisingly high pitched and incredibly satisfying * _ping_ *, and then something pillowy-soft landed in his lap.  Eridan looked down.  Jigglypuff sat in his lap, fast asleep.  To his horror, the badger was now splattered across the pit like the set of a highly unrealistic horror movie.  Eridan had commanded her to use Rest.

            Above, the Hufflepuffs were cheering and lowering a rope ladder.  They… _accepted him._

“Not like that,” Terezi snapped, pointing with her dragon-head wand as if it were a sword, “like that!  Don’t aim at your opponents—” She thrust again and a solid beam of diamond-hard Red exploded forth, shattering the practice dummy she had conjured.  “Aim _through_ them!”  With a gentler swing of her wand the dummy reassembled itself.  Neville sighed.

            When she first took him to an empty classroom to ‘practice’, he’d been afraid she wanted to snog, and the fact that the first three classrooms they tried had featured people snogging[5] in them prominently had only made him tremble and blush all the more uncontrollably when they finally found an empty one and Terezi locked the door and took off her outer robe.  The fact that she was wearing a dragonskin arming jacket underneath only scared him further but in the _exact same way._

            Then she showed him her patented “Enemies Explode Spell” and he was relieved.  Until he realized he was expected to actually _do_ it.  “I can’t do _inaudible_ magic!” he squealed, aiming his wand anyway.  From the way his hand was shaking he would explode the entire room and not the practice dummy, if he could actually muster the power.

            Terezi threw her arm around him, pulling him into a very uncomfortable angle, especially since her wand was now aimed directly at his penis.  “Look,” she said, gesturing grandly.  “If you shoot for the moon, you’ll land among the stars!”

            “The stars are _much_ farther than the moon,” he mumbled absently, looking down at the hungry-looking wooden reptile whose carven teeth seemed to be subtly closing on his member.  “Don’t they teach astronomy over there—?”

            Terezi’s arm tightened, jerkin Neville’s neck painfully.  “Look, if I ask you to do hard things, the easy things will come more easily.  That’s it.  That’s all you needed to gather from that statement.”  She shoved him away.  “Now kill that dummy!”

 

            Two hours later and he hadn’t even scratched it.  A feeble pink beam would sputter lazily out and sort of, _gently tap_ the dummy.  It was actually considerable progress, he thought, from when he’d been actively healing the damn thing.  He smiled at Terezi.  

            She was giving him the frowning of a lifetime.  “Let’s try something else,” she said.  Terezi raised her wand as if it were a rapier and the dragon’s eyes glowed red.  “Defend yourself!”

            “Huh?!” Neville said, as a large glowing fist made of teal light smashed into his chest and threw him across the room.

            “You can do better than that!” Terezi shouted, preparing a whip of Bluebell Flames.

            Neville rose to his feet, chest aching, trying to hold back tears.  Then he raised his wand and shouted “STUPEFY!”

 

            Terezi and Neville were lying on the floor, limbs splayed, feet pointing in opposite directions.  Neville was breathing hard, as if he were about to have a heart attack.  His head was lying on top of Terezi’s hair, which was fairly short and so the heat coming off his head was making her ear sweaty, but she didn’t mind because he was bleeding a little and couldn’t use legs.  Terezi was in far better condition, but that was largely because of her arming jacket that she almost decided not to bring.  It was weeks later, and after a grueling training regimen that had been cut out for time but involved punching barrels of acid-pop mix, crushing butterbeer bottles on his forehead, wrestling firecrabs, naming his self-esteem and then defeating it in an internal battle for control of his own life[6] and eating copious amounts of Pop-Rocks and Coke, Neville had finally succeeded in winding Terezi.

            “You can actually be really good at this kind of thing,” she said.  “Dueling I mean.”  Truth be told, Terezi was a dueling prodigy and had placed third in an international competition spanning all of North America, putting Neville far above most people at Hogwarts, but she didn’t want him to get too confident yet.  “You just need to bring out that Gryffindor fighting spirit.”  She turned to look at him with a devilish, contented grin on her face and winked.

            Neville yelped and scooched over a few feet, pulling out a few strands of straw-blonde hair.  “Um,” he said, “thank you?”

            Terezi nodded, thinking it quite well earned praise.  “You can do anything you want Neville,” she said, grin widening and showing off her many sharp little teeth.  “Even ask out that cute blonde who has an obvious crush on you.”

            Neville’s jaw dropped.  “You’re right.”

 

            Eridan was still recovering from his encounter with the devil-badger in hospital wing.  The other Hufflepuffs told Madam Pomfrey he’d fallen.  She didn’t believe them, but said nothing, a tear in her eye.  Eridan didn’t care.  Hufflepuff was his _family_.  They came to see him every day and tell him about how things were going on, even Nepeta and her tame giant who had never given him the time of day before.  He didn’t mind, they were family now.  He looked down at the spherical incarnation of love sitting in his lap, which was currently hidden under the blankets and bore a wretched wound that had almost made him bleed out, and felt his heart melting.  “Jig,” she said happily, as if to say _you can do anything you want if you put your mind to it._   “Puff,” she added as Eridan scratched her belly with a fingernail.  _You are kind, you are smart, and you are important._

            “Thank you,” he said, eyes watery.  He hugged Jigglypuff tight.

            “No Luna please you misunderstood!” a loud, awkward voice said.

            Eridan looked up from his bed and saw a petite blond with huge blue eyes whose skin was translucent pale, enough to fit in with the American kids in fact, leading a taller, very awkward looking boy whose hair was darker.  He had a very British jawline, which is to say, _barely._   “When I said I was crazy about you—”

            “Madame Pomfrey,” she said authoritatively, “this boy is very ill.  He claims that I drove him mad on accident, please help him!” Her voice was quiet but it carried and possessed a strange dream-like quality, as if she knew exactly what she were doing but was also _very aware_ of the fact that everything you, _you specifically,_ knew was wrong.  She was a solid ten, Eridan thought, admiring her rear.  The boy was a six for now, but had the look of a guy who would be a proper stud once fully grown.  _If,_ that is, _if_ puberty was kind enough to allow him the ability to grow a beard.

            Pomfrey shot the boy a Look and then dragged him off to the other side of the infirmary by his ear, giving him a stern talking to about bothering young girls with his unwanted amorous advances.  Eridan had flashbacks to when he would receive the same treatment and felt sympathetic pains in his ear.

            The blonde waved cutely and turned away, shooting Eridan a smile.  Oh wow, thought Eridan, this could be a fresh start.  This and glorious Hufflepuff.  Jigglypuff was giving him more encouraging words.  “Jiggly,” she burbled.  Yes, thought Eridan, he should absolutely _call her over right now._

            “Hey,” he said, voice cracking, “can you come ovver here?”

            She blinked.  Eridan flushed.  She did as well.

            Luna approached.  “So,” he said, voice cracking a little.  “You’re a girl.”

            “Yes,” Luna said.

            “And…” Eridan stumbled, trying not to fuck it up.  “You’re also vvery pretty.”  _Wway_ out of his league in fact.

            Luna might have commented on how he spoke funny but didn’t; she was too distracted.  “Yes?” she breathed, furiously crimson at the compliment.

            “Wwell,” said Eridan. He was close enough to take the girl’s hand.  Unthinkingly, he did.  “Wwill… _wwill you teach me to talk to wwomen_?”

            Luna blinked.  For the first time in her life, she was confused.

 

 

* * *

 

[1] Snape’s great magical power is such that his physical appearance is completely plastic, ranging from a very small, pallid man who looks like a cartoon djinn and walks like a spider, to a very tall, pallid man with greasy black hair and serpentine grace who looks like Alan Rickman.  In particular, Snape’s goatee is the subject of much debate among scholars.  It has generally been agreed upon to exist in a state of perpetual uncertainty much like Schrodinger’s Cat.  Whenever he is noted to resemble Alan Rickman he suddenly becomes bearded, but any attempt on the part of anyone to interact with or even make mention of the goatee causes it to cease existing.

[2] Terezi

[3] Jane, Jade

[4] Jade

[5] In order: Dave and Hermione, Dumbledore and Professor Vector (prettiest man ever to grace Hogwarts’ halls), Mr. Filch and Mrs. Norris.  Also, the fourth room contained Draco Malfoy weeping while failing to masturbate.

[6] The struggle with Malvolio, Neville’s confidence/dancestor, will be told in _The Last Temptation of Neville Longbottom_ , coming to an Ao3 near you this summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This wasn’t supposed to be that long T_T  
> We should have gotten to the first basilisk attack by now damn my stupid mind T_T  
> With the inclusion of Pokémon a propos of nothing this is officially the stupidest thing I ever wrote and I wrote a scene where all the Homestuck kids sing [“There Can Be Miracles”](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gur8ccqrQ9c) from the Prince of Egypt after having an orgy T_T  
> ALAN RICKMAN DOESN’T LOOK LIKE THE BOOK ART I AM SO FUNNY HAHAHA GET IT? T_T  
> And Terezi sure does like hanging out with a dude named Neville. Was it an intentional reference to [Trollish Layer?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/783747/chapters/1477645) Of course it fucking was, who are you talking to? T_T  
> But did I make her blonde just so I could tease The Government Stole My Toad (fuck HP ship names are even sillier than Homstuck ones)? Nope! T_T  
> Enjoy I guess T_T


	3. In Which You All Ship John and Ginny

            Professor Lockhart paced in his room, wringing his hands in anticipation.  Soon that lilac-eyed piece of jailbait would be in here and then—

            John Egbert walked into the room.  “Hey professor!” he shouted excitedly.  “I’m here to help with your fanmail, remember?” he asked upon seeing the professor’s expression.  Several dozen similar expressions gawked down at him from the walls, and he was temporarily incredibly aware of how narcissistic the man was—

            “Here’s a signed copy of my latest book,” said Lockhart, hastily running behind his desk to hide his erection and scribbling something incoherent on the cover of _Magical Me_.  “Go read in the corner for a minute, until I’m ready,” he mumbled.

            Lockhart was feeling like an idiot—how could he have scheduled two of his favorite activities[1] on the same night?

            Right on cue, Rose walked in, supremely bored.  Her heavily lidded gaze took in the scene; John in the corner leafing through the book as quickly as he could, the countless creepily grinning Lockharts hanging from the walls as posters, paintings and photographs, and even a crude child’s drawing with a big red heart on it, and of course the man himself, falling to the floor behind his desk as if he were desperately trying to hide something.

            John looked up and waved eagerly.  “Hey Rose!”  He stood up and ran over to give her a quick hug.  “Are you going to help the Professor with his fanmail too?”

            “Is that what you’re doing for detention?” she asked with a sigh.

            “Detention?” John asked with a chuckle.  “I was _invited._   What’d you get detention for?”

            “I had a prophecy, during which I swore within earshot of the professor,” she said with an eyeroll.  “And this is a punishable offense at this _alleged_ learning institution, apparently.”  John chuckled.

            “You two know each other?” said Lockhart, voice squeaky, as he rose but up from behind the desk.  Damn shame, John was a fine boy with a potential greatness ahead, and he hated stealing girls from rising stars.

            “Yeah,” said John, “we’re best friends!”

            “We go on double dates with our _respective romantic interests_ ,” Rose added pointedly.

            Lockhart sighed in relief.  Seducing the young maiden would not harm his young investment, but merely some other stupid kid he didn’t give a shit about.  He liked John, in his own way.  Reminded him of his own childhood—

            At this, he had a wretched flashback to being buggered in Hyde Park by a shaven, abused chimpanzee that someone had painted red for about ten minutes until Rose asked “ _are you alright professor?!”_ voice full of alarm and revulsion at the sounds he had been gurgling.

            Lockhart slapped himself and leaned on his desk.  “I am now that you’re here,” he said as sexily as he could muster with the memory of chimpanzee breath on the back of his neck.

            If raised eyebrows could kill, Rose would just have just reduced the entirety of the British Isles to a radioactive crater.

            Lockhart cleared his throat.  “Johnny old boy,” he said with a smile that showed off all of his teeth and none of his soul, “I actually just realized an errand I need running.”  He rummaged around in his desk and pulled out a random thing.  “This bag of graveyard dust—”

            “It’s a box,” John noted.

            “I’m sorry,” said Lockhart with a pompous air, “but I am much more famous than you and am therefore correct,” Rose slapped her forehead with both hands as if it owed her money. “Anyway, it’s full of graveyard dust from the tombs of several powerful vampires.  To ensure that they don’t return from the dead, the ashes must be purified and scattered properly!”  He tossed the box at John, who caught it with a minimum of fumbling.  “You’ll need to figure out how to do that if you want to be my apprentice—”

            John nearly choked on a gasp.  He looked up at the professor with wide, watery blue eyes.  “I can be your _apprentice_?”

            “Yes,” Lockhart snarled, “now leave the lady and I in peace!” he said, pointing for the door authoritatively.  John saluted and ran off as fast as he could go.

            “Now,” said Lockhart hungrily, “Where were we?”

            Rose blinked.

 

            The process of purifying and scattering vampire ashes was incredibly complex and time consuming, requiring sacred fires started with various rare aromatics and offerings to the four cardinal directions dependant on the phases of the moon.  However, Dave’s Bro was one of the leading Aurors back home and specialized in pragmatic solutions for defeating dark creatures, and he’d taught the kids a thing or two.

            It was much faster and more effective, for example, to pour the goddamn ashes down a toilet and have done. 

            John ducked into the first one he could find.  For some reason, all of the ones on Lockhart’s floor were out of order (in actual fact Gamzee and Peeves had been caught doing Faygo in the stalls and had tried to flush the evidence before Snape got to them;  Unfortunately the Victorian era pipes couldn’t handle such huge amounts of fizziness and exploded).  Therefore, he had to run downstairs to the first floor.

            As soon as he set foot inside, a redheaded girl, shorter than he and vaguely weaselish, barreled into him in tears, and knocked him to the floor, dropping a little black leather book.  She looked down at him, brown eyes wide and full of terror.  “You okay?” John asked.

            She bolted.  John sighed.  Normally he would try to help as much as he could but _damn_ if he didn’t want to be Lockhart’s apprentice.  He memorized her face and stepped into a random stall.

            “You’re not supposed to be in here—” a voice burbled from the toilet, until it was interrupted by a stream of lilac glitter in the shape of the professor’s face. 

            “Sorry about that, toilet ghost!” John said, as he flushed with his foot.  He washed the tiny glittering faces get sucked down along with the dirty water.  “Huh,” he muttered curiously as a high pitched wailing began to fill his ears.  “Not…actually vampire ashes.” 

            “Stop ignoring meeeee!” The bathroom ghost wailed.  She took a swing at him.  It was a girl who looked about his age and kinda-sorta resembled that kid Harry if you squinted.  John continued ignoring her.  Little chills happened whenever her tiny fists passed through him, but he persisted in thinking hard.  “And they call me Moaning Myrtle!” the ghost announced.

            “Wow Professor Lockhart is a douche!” John declared.

            Myrtle screamed right in his face.  “You are a douche!  _Youuuuuuuuu!”_ She began throwing toilet water at him.

            John chuckled.  “Later Screaming Mimi!  I gotta go complain about this bullshit task!”  He turned on his heel—

            And slipped, banging his head on the toilet with a nasty crack.  Moaning Myrtle smiled wickedly and dove into the sink.

 

_Hello my baby,_

_Hello my honey!_

Harry woke up screaming.  “OH GOD WHY?!” he shouted, scaring the bloody shit out of everyone in Gryffindor tower.  Karkat threw a pillow at him.  Gryffindor pillows are very heavy and embroidered with thread of gold; the hard whack knocked Harry back into sense.

            “What the fuck is your problem?” Karkat hissed.

            Harry hugged himself, shivering.  “Dudley always used to beat me up while the _Looney Toons_ were on…”  Karkat looked at him like he was an idiot and went back to bed.  Everyone else did as well, shooting Harry a series of pointed glares.  Eventually he went back to sleep.  He briefly wondered where John was, and then remembered that he was helping Professor Lockhart.

 

_Hello my ragtime gal!_

            Vriska shook Aranea’s shoulder.  “Ooh Vincent,” she cooed in her sleep, “not so rough…”  she begin to giggle, causing the drool at the corners of her mouth to bubble, and her leg begin to kick automatically, knocking most of her blanket to the floor.

            Vriska scowled and considered punching her awake but thought better of it.  Instead she stalked off to the bathroom, filled a cup with toilet water, and then upended it over her sister’s head.

            Aranea jumped and as quickly as a striking cobra, Vriska covered her mouth with her hand.  “ _Do you feel it?_ ” she hissed.  Aranea looked confused for all of a second, and then her eyes widened in shock.  Vriska removed her hand.  “Grab your shit,” she said, “you know what mom taught us.”

            Aranea let out a deep sigh and the two of them scrambled quickly to pack their bags without waking any of the other Slytherin girls.  Vriska was already at the door when Aranea stopped her.  “One more moment,” she said, fiddling around with a quill and parchment.  “I need to leave a note for Vincent…”

            The younger Serket growled and a girl nearby stirred, so she hit her with a sleeping jinx and continued scowling at her sister.  “I’m not going to tell him where or why,” Aranea said drily, failing to entirely control her blush.  “Love has not made me stupid.”

            “Yes it has,” said Vriska, a venomous grin cracking her face, “because stupidity is doing something even though you know better.  Just because a boy has muscles…”

            “Ambition,” Aranea snapped pointedly, “is _sexy_.”  She punctuated her sentence by punctuating her letter with a loud _*splat*_ of her pen.

            “You didn’t change for him at all,” Vriska added, voice dripping with sarcasm like poisoned honey from a satanic beehive.  “You were _allllllllways_ a bad girl.  Running a gang and bullying guys named Neville is just in your blood.”

            Aranea neatly folded and sealed the letter and stood up, prim and proper, with a matching _*sniff*_.  “ _Piracy_ is in our blood—”

 

_Send me a kiss by wire!_

_Baby my heart’s on fire!_

A chill as cold and terrible as death passed through the Serkets’ bodies and they slammed into a powerful, tearful embrace as if compelled by something stronger than magnets.  Vriska wept into her sister’s nightshirt, shuddering like the little girls she was.  “I’m sorry,” she said, “Let’s never fight again.”

            Aranea hushed her and ran her fingers through her messy red hair.  “It’s alright we’re going away and he can’t hurt us!”  Aranea set the letter down gently on the common room table and pulled out her wand.  With a practiced flick, she vanished their packs.  “Ready?” she asked.

            “Ready!” Vriska declared, already regaining her bravado.  They touched their wands to their noses and instantly morphed into spiders.  They followed the spider web of spider roads up through the dungeons and out of the castle, leaving a trail in webbing-language for their arachnid brethren.  So began the Great Spider Exodus of 1992.

 

_If you refuse me,_

_Honey you lose me,_

            John had been gone for hours.  Rose worked on the papers while watching her professor warily out of the corner of her eye.  He had first taught her how to falsify his signature and tried to pull that old bullshit trick of ‘standing behind you and holding your hands to direct your movements and you find it sexy for some reason’ move, but a quick elbow to the junk had put a stop to that.  “I’m sorry professor,” Rose had said, wide-eyed innocence writ large on her face, “I have an instinctual aversion to being touched.  I _do_ beg your pardon!”

            Now he was sulking in the corner under a portrait of himself with its foot up on a slain dragon, both of which were shaking their head and clucking consolingly.  He would not be having any inappropriate thoughts for the next month or so until that shit healed.  Rose had taken over the desk and had her feet raised up on it as she worked slowly and with practiced laziness.  The thing was topped with green dragon leather.  Red leather was for chumps; _green dragon_ was real fucking prestige.  The bastard probably had tenure! 

            Suddenly, she heard music.  She and all the Lockharts (except the actual one, too hurt emotionally and physically to care) angled their heads, trying to trace its origin.  It sounded like…hissing.  But with a _beat_.

 

_And you’ll be left alone_

_Oh baby! Telephone—_

A chalk outline had been drawn around a large pile of sand and some Slytherin clothes.  The curious thing is that the sand had been turned into stone.  That little shit Colin Creevey snapped a photograph, his annoying traits being harnessed by the administration for the gathering of evidence.  Filch was unsuccessfully keeping a ravening horde of students away from the scene.  McGonagall was busily interviewing the members of Crabbe’s new gang, which, as of now, were limited to Crabbe.  “So Pike was just a golem that Miss Serket created for you out of sand so that your gang would have enough members to be intimidating?”

            Crabbe grunted in affirmative.

            “And where is Miss Serket now?” she added snappishly.

            Crabbe grunted angrily, with an undertone of sadness.

            “I see,” she added curiously.  “Produce the letter,” McGonagall commanded.

            Crabbe, shaking with tears, pulled out the heartfelt “Dear John” letter that Aranea had left him.  “Oh my,” McGonagall muttered upon seeing the thing.  Front and back, no margins, eight point font in scratchy, loopy cursive handwriting like tendrils of spiderweb caught in the wind, blotted here and there with tears, cerulean ink on cream parchment…the damn thing would take ages to decipher.

 

_And tell me I’m your oooooooown!_

 

            Freed of one curse only to fall for another.  The hideous thing’s beautiful eyes were boring wretched holes into her soul, as if a pure, malevolent intelligence were stalking her through the vivid blue portals. 

            And it was masturbating _furiously._

            Ginny opened her eyes, roused from her sleep at the lunch table by a gentle nudge.  Blue eyes stared back at her and she screamed, falling from her bench.  But they weren’t… _his_.  It was that American boy from the other night that she’d caught being a pervert but had been too preoccupied to care.

            “Hi,” he said, stretching out a hand.  “John Egbert.”  She took it gingerly.  “I hit my head and was in the hospital wing so I didn’t have a chance to talk to you the other night but you looked really bad,” he said, speaking low and fast, trying to be tactful so no one else would pay them mind.  It was unlikely that they’d be overheard but it was just as well.

            “Ginny Weasley,” she said cautiously.  “How much did you see the other night?”

            “Just that you were upset and dropped something,” he said with a little chuckle, “nothing _incriminating_ of course.”

            Ginny grinned with unease.  “Did you pick up what I dropped?” she asked, heart skipping a beat.

            “Nope,” he said.  “Sorry, it was gone when I came to.”

            Ginny sighed with relief.  “Good,” she said.  The two of them stood there awkwardly for another second or two.

            “Anything you might need—” John began, and was interrupted.

            “Yo wassup,” said Dave, sauntering up.  “Check it, I got the internet to work in this joint,” he declared, producing a brick style cell-phone with a portable television spell-o-taped to it.

            “What’s the internet?” the both asked, and leaned in to watch.

 

 

            Dave snickered.  “Gotta show this to Potter.  Laters.”  A sense of doom hung over that declaration that none could understand, but all present could feel.

 

[1] The corruption of the youth and the ruining of youth for marriage are similar, but should _never be done at the same time!_ At least if it’s not the same child…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehehehehe my plans are all coming to fruition *tented fingers of villainy*  
> Also my favorite Harry Potter book took place the year I was born…huh.  
> The heir of Slytherin is Michigan J. Frog.


End file.
